


Let's Not Talk About the Weather

by bitt



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Incest, POV Second Person, rotating perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 08:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7500669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitt/pseuds/bitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever you speak to her you feel like she’s got a rope around your neck and whenever you aren’t speaking to her you feel like the rope is being pulled so tight you ought to be purple in the face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Want to Keep This Private, I Can See That

She moves like a river, and you’re sick of similes and cliches like that but she’s just stubborn enough to warrant them, to make you sicker with their use. She walks like rain falls, and her mouth is a smirking stormcloud and when she shows her teeth it’s a lightning strike of white. You grit your own age-yellowed teeth at the thought.

 

She looks like you. Not exactly, but enough. Same white-blond hair, same thick eyebrows and arms a little too long for her body. You wonder if she’s noticed the similarities. Probably, since she’s about nine times more observant than you are. At least, you have to assume so. As a writer, she would almost have to be. She’s desperately gorgeous and obnoxiously intelligent, and whenever you speak to her you feel like she’s got a rope around your neck and whenever you aren’t speaking to her you feel like the rope is being pulled so tight you ought to be purple in the face.

 

She’s so guarded, but she doesn’t hide as well as she’d like to. Not from you, anyway. Not from anyone who watches her closely.

 

There’s an glint in her eyes when champagne is passed around, and a quiver in her hand when she turns the drink down. Her dress is not the flat black that the other women here wear; a faint lilac tints it. She’s wearing white tights and big dumb mary janes, and you make a mental note to commend her on the ironic statement. She’s talking to her editor, and her laugh is forced and dry and it’s almost painful to watch.

 

You cross the room, and quietly ask “need a knight, Lalonde?”

 

She rolls her eyes but lightning strikes and she kisses your cheek. “I know what I’m doing, Strider.”

 

 

///

 

 

In everything he does, he is cold. You mentioned it to him once, and he brushed it off too quickly, as he is wont to do with uncomfortable truths. He’s warmest when his body is against yours, when you’re both shuddering and pretending you aren’t. Stifled moans are all you give anymore.

 

He is, by nature, algebraic. Calculated. His fans either love it or are infuriated by it, but to him both responses are positive. You think that’s cute. You mentioned that to him once, too, and he scoffed. You were both naked at the time, however, so you aren’t entirely sure of the legitimacy of his scoff.

 

He loves to bother you at parties. At least he seems to consider it bothering. You realize this and respond accordingly, because it always feels like it should be a game between the two of you.

 

The night you met him, he was a wreck. Black suit too suave and confining for a young hotshot, hair confused about which way to part, long arms swinging wildly as his fists slammed against your front door.

 

He’d read your book, he said. He’d read it six times. He said he’d never felt so awake in all his life. He called you a prophet.

 

You said you preferred seer.

 

 

 


	2. But You Can’t Ask That of Me, We’ve Only Just Met

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ll forgive me for this,” you said, and poised your needle at his exposed throat, “but I am not quick to trust strange men on my doorstep. Particularly ones who reek of day-old sweat and week-old marijuana.”

He was most honest when you first met, and the inherent reversal of norm was something you found at once very interesting and very pretentious. Superficially pretentious, intentionally pretentious. He does that.

 

You were married at the time, twenty-four and maybe three steps up from starving artist. The book had only been out for a week. You still don’t know how he found you so quickly.

 

He was beating the door and shouting, and when you answered you held a thick needle. Your editor had said people would come, that you were inviting danger with your writings and ensuring it by refusing to hide your identity. You didn’t care. Let it come, you would take it head-on and make all the bastards burn.

 

So you expected clowns with a death wish, not a newly infamous sweat-soaked director with trying-too-hard sunglasses. He apologized immediately for scaring you, but took a step inside anyway.

 

“You’ll forgive me for this,” you said, and poised your needle at his exposed throat, “but I am not quick to trust strange men on my doorstep. Particularly ones who reek of day-old sweat and week-old marijuana.”

 

“It’s week-old because it was a week ago that your book came out.” He grinned, but swallowed hard. “It was a week ago that I didn’t need to dull my senses anymore.”

 

“Congratulations on your enlightenment. Now tell me why you’re here.”

 

“Wow, that’s really. Wow. You talk like you write.”

 

“Such is the flaw of having weak character voice. You ass.”

 

“Yeah I didn’t mean it like that and I’m pretty sure you realize it. But whatever.”

 

“How am I to know what you mean? Isn’t being enigmatic your whole shtick? Or is that another thing I’ve misinterpreted?”

 

“God damn it Lalonde I am trying to compliment you here and you are being fucking impossible.”

 

“Fucking impossible is _my_ shtick, actually.”

 

“Yeah, I’ve read the book.”

 

“That hurts, Strider. It really does.”

 

“Oh my god you know who I am.” Suddenly you understood everything.

 

“Jesus Christ. You’re quite the fan, aren't you?”

 

You let him in, but kept the needle tucked in your pocket. You couldn’t trust anyone. No matter how much you’d like to. He asked if you’d seen his movie, and nearly split his face smiling when you told him you had, twice in fact. He mentioned he was almost afraid to ask if you liked it. You shrugged, just to watch his reaction. Stone faced.

 

“There’s gonna be more movies,” he said. “At least, like, twenty.”

 

“If we live that long.”

 

His eyes widened under his shades. “Yeah? You getting a premonition or whatever?”

 

“Or whatever. I’m not a psychic, Strider.”

 

“Yeah, I was thinking more prophet anyway.” Anxious, he scratched at his ear. “Sorry are you like not comfortable with that I don’t mean anything by it I just think you’re really cool and I want to impress you I’m sorry.”

 

And you both fell silent. He turned away from you. You busied yourself with boiling a kettle for tea.

 

A few minutes later he spoke. “I’m not usually such a dildo.”

 

“Your word choice is as graceful as your directing style, Mr. Strider.” He made a noise like a crab being crushed. “I’m patronizing you, it’s intentional. I do that.”

 

“Fucking impossible, right?”

 

“Yes, that’s the general schematic.”

 

“Are you seriously making tea?”

 

“What, would you prefer coffee?”

 

“I’d prefer something to make me forget embarrassing myself tonight.”

 

“Alcohol.” You shifted uncomfortably. “I have. A problem with that. I can’t do that anymore.” Suddenly your eloquence was shattered, and half-remembered flashes of a teenage nightmare ran through your head. Your vision went black. You hated this. You hated knowing that you did that. Your hands shook, ever-so-slightly, your only physical tell.

 

He touched you. Lightly. Just three fingers on your left wrist, to calm you right at your pulse. You had never been okay with casual touch like that. But. This was okay. Miraculously. There was another apology in his eyes, though. You couldn’t tell the exact color because of the sunglasses, but they appeared dark brown. Something in your head told you they were actually red.You wondered about that part of you, always telling you things.

 

Very rarely was there any means of knowing if what it said was true. It told you to write that book you’d been thinking up. It told you to keep your doors locked. It told you to worry only half as much as you prepared. It told you many impossible things.

 

But today it told you Dave Strider’s eyes were red.

 

But you didn’t check. Not right away. Not that night. That night you talked about the book and you insulted his movie but only just enough for him to know you still liked it, and he praised your book until he noticed the unease around your eyes. It was not until the next night that you saw his eyes. Red.

 

When you finally pulled off his shades they were the last thing, the beginning of the end for both of you.

 

Because you couldn’t trust anyone, no matter how much you’d like to.

 

But all sources said Dave Strider wasn’t just anyone.

 

 

///

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading i love you dearly

**Author's Note:**

> hey i wrote this in like 2012 but i still like it, maybe you do too? cheers.


End file.
